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What a difference a day makes - Start-Up Success

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What a difference a day makes

There’s never been a time when business advice has been so readily available.  But how do you sort the good from the bad?

Can you really learn all you need to know in just one day?

Well yes… the Start-Up Success programme, launched by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) and supported by the Regional Growth Fund, believes it has the winning formula.

Designed and delivered by Phil Wragg and Russell Smith of Business Boffins Ltd, Start-Up Success offered five weekly sessions between October and December 2014 repeated at three locations  in Witney, Oxford City Centre and Berinsfield at three different times of the day to make them as accessible as possible as well as two Saturday “catch up sessions”.

The topics covered included Introduction to Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship in Action, Marketing, Business Planning and Enterprise Finance.

A total of 26 participants attended the course and were given an opportunity to prepare a business plan, a cash flow forecast and a funding presentation for a “Dragon’s Den” type event on 21 January 2015.  Participants were invited to make their business ‘pitch’ with the offer of an Apple IPAD AIR, worth £350, as the top prize.

OxLEP’s Tony Hart chaired the judges and said, “I was amazed at how professional the business pitches were and by the wealth of creative talent that we have across the county in Oxfordshire.”

The overall winners were Jo Howson and Matthew Hulett from Lashbrook Lassis with their Indian-inspired yoghurt drinks.  However, the judges also identified Dr Richard Findlay from EMFcomp as the best ‘service’ business and Dr Phil Huxley from Ducentis as the best ‘breakthrough’ business.

Introducing the winners:

The ‘Product’ Business – Lashbrook Lassis

Lashbrook LassisFew businesses start with the suggestion, “Let’s go for a bike ride.” and few bike rides start with the idea of cycling from England to Thailand.

This is exactly what ex-teachers Jo Howson and Matthew Hulett decided in 2012 and it was on their travels through India that they sampled their first lassi – a traditional blend of yoghurt flavoured with fresh fruit and spices.

They were hooked.  Their bikes went into storage and the pair travelled across India by train on a three-month ‘lassi trail’.  As Matthew says, “During our tour we came across lassis so thick they had to be eaten with a spoon and others, such as the spicy sambaram made with sour buttermilk, which left us feeling particularly queasy”.

Once back from India Jo and Matt moved into Lashbrook Farm in Oxfordshire and began recreating their own versions of the Indian lassi.  The drinks proved so popular with friends and family that the duo began selling them at local farmers’ markets and Lashbrook Lassis was born as a business.

After two years of development and selected from over 100 experiments,  there are now three flavours  in production.  These are pear spinach & ginger, coffee pistachio & cardamom and beetroot, sultana and cinnamon.

Healthy, sophisticated and delicious… what’s not to like?

New businesses need energy, drive and communication skills – characteristics this pair has in abundance.  Matt is an international rower and Jo an award-winning drama teacher.

So what’s next for them?  Well, they are already writing their first book about their Indian adventure.  Further trips are planned to other continents in order to identify culinary treasures that they can share with us back here in the UK.  Surely it can only be a matter of time before they have their own TV series...

To find out more about Lashbrook Lassis, contact Jo Howson and Matthew Hulett:

The ‘Service’ Business - EMFcomp

Dr Richard Findlay is the Director of EMFcomp (Electromagnetic field computing), a company located at the Harwell Innovation Centre that is based upon his expert Dr Richard Findlayknowledge and that helps organisations to assess compliance with the EMF Directive 2013/35/EU.

This Directive relates to safe exposure of human beings who work with machines and devices that generate potentially hazardous electromagnetic fields.  Since EMFcomp, in collaboration with Public Health England, developed the Practical Guide to the EMF Directive 2013/35/EU for the European Commission it is ideally placed to investigate compliance with the Directive.

EMFcomp has developed a wide range of computational tools to characterise devices that produce electromagnetic fields.  The software can create computational models for a variety of devices and use these to investigate how the fields produced interact with workers or members of the public.  These simulations can then feed back into the design process to ensure that human exposure is minimised.

Dr Findlay has recently accepted an invitation to join the IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES).  Richard is presently a consulting expert on the subcommittee concerned with EMF dosimetry modelling and the application to human exposure standards. The purpose of the committee is to resolve uncertainties related to numerical models that calculate in-situ electric fields induced in the body.

But being a world-class physicist does not necessarily equip one to lead a new business.  Recognising his need to learn more about starting a business, Richard enrolled on the Start-Up Success programme and he is in no doubt about how it helped him.

Commenting on the programme, Richard  said: “I think the quality of the course and presenters was excellent; it was one of the best courses I’ve ever been on (and I’ve been on a few!); it should be made available to more people”.

To find out more about EMFcomp, contact Dr Richard Findlay:

The ‘Breakthrough’ Business - Ducentis

Dr Phil HuxleyFollowing a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr Phil Huxley came up with a ‘breakthrough’ idea that he wanted to take forward using his new company, Ducentis.  Here he explains how the course helped him to tackle the challenge:

“In October 2014 Ducentis was the germ of an idea: some science described in what now reads like painful detail, a fund-raising goal but no clear idea of how to link them together.  The challenge facing all biotech start-ups is to crystallise a value proposition which whilst conceptually simple (drugs solve problems for patients and make money) is hard to explain to investors at a point when drug sales are a distant prospect. To succeed, the would-be entrepreneur must help prospective investors understand how they can profit when investing early in the process. This is what the Start-Up Success course helped us to achieve.

The course gave me a weekly diary event when I joined a group of like-minded people - all facing similar challenges – to take on new information and exchange ideas about our different journeys.  Our meetings provided three different types of help:

  • Knowledge: e.g. an explanation of government tax breaks for investors and how to ensure that your investment qualifies
  • Advice: e.g. the value to investors of a simple year one cash flow forecast used in the absence of sales and a meaningful P&L.
  • Networking: e.g. OxLEP introduced Ducentis to a network of local investors that we are now in active discussions with

We have now secured 40% of our year-one funding requirement and believe that we will achieve our goal before the end of April.  Start-Up Success undoubtedly played a key role in helping us progress from our starting point in October 2014 to the point that we have reached now.”

To find out more about Ducentis, contact Dr Phil Huxley: